


Cursed Consequences

by Temporarily



Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Horror, Humor, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Inspired by Spooky Season and Spooky Podcasts, L Being A Good Brother, M/M, Multi, OT3, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Suspense, Warning: Some Moderately Dark Shit, and hurt/comfort, implied/referenced trauma, selective mutism, the awkward part of the funeral where that family member you've never seen before shows up, when your bf's there to witness all the regrettable things you say on anesthesia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-01-16 03:10:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21264107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Temporarily/pseuds/Temporarily
Summary: “What’s your doll’s name?” Linda asked. Near picked up his knife and started writing something in his mashed potatoes. “Isaac?” Near nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, Isaac,” Linda said, and she shook the doll’s cloth hand.Near started pantomiming feeding Isaac. “Aren’t you going to eat too Near?” Linda asked. The boy shook his head.At his seat on Matt’s left, Mello sneered. “I can’t tell who’s creepier, the kid or the doll.” Matt couldn’t help but agree.





	1. Chapter 1

There was an unspoken rule at Wammy’s House: No one was told about new arrivals. Children came to the house without warning and at seemingly random intervals. This was for the sake of the newcomers, who might be overwhelmed by an entire orphanage of excitable geniuses welcoming them. So it was only by chance that Matt happened to be looking out the living room window the day Near arrived. 

The scene played out like a predictable weekly cartoon show. A sleek black car oozed up to the iron-wrought gate, and Mr. Wammy stepped out. He doffed his hat, went around back, and opened the door. A young boy emerged. The older man took his hand and started leading him down the driveway. 

Matt watched as they approached—his attention torn from his handheld game for once—and observed the new kid. He was tiny, drowning in his filthy, tattered, blue-and-white striped pajamas. He was pale too, barely distinguishable from the washed-out winter landscape. And he carried nothing with him but a grimy porcelain doll with blonde curls and green glass eyes. 

By the time Matt was able to see the doll they had reached the porch. Then Mr. Wammy and the boy disappeared into the house. Matt went back to his game and didn’t spare the new kid a second thought until dinner. 

It was at dinner that he was properly introduced. Near. Six years old. Please make him feel welcome. 

And Matt tried, briefly. He said hi. A couple of the other kids did too. But Near ducked his head until his bangs hid his face and pushed around his food with a fork. 

They got kids like this sometimes. They’d be quiet for a week or two, then someone would manage to bond with them and bring them out of their shell, and soon they’d be running around laughing like all the rest. (Mello had been one of those kids, only he arrived covered in blood and ashes instead of dirt. It barely took a day for him to turn around, flaring up into a raging firestorm that tore the whole orphanage apart until he finally cooled down.) Matt had no intention of being that someone for Near. It looked like Linda had taken a liking to him though. She was trying harder than any of them to engage him in conversation. 

“What’s your doll’s name?” she asked. Near picked up his knife and started writing something in his mashed potatoes. “Isaac?” Near nodded. He didn’t smile or frown. His face remained completely blank. “It’s nice to meet you, Isaac,” Linda said, and she shook the doll’s cloth hand. 

Near started pantomiming feeding Isaac. “Aren’t you going to eat too Near?” Linda asked. The boy shook his head.

At his seat on Matt’s left, Mello sneered. “I can’t tell who’s creepier, the kid or the doll.” Matt couldn’t help but agree.

Mello quickly decided that he fucking hated Near and his stupid doll. Not just because Near began beating him at every exam, although that was bad enough. What really stung was how Near became the champion of giving Roger headaches.  _ Mello  _ had been the undisputed Roger-bother-er before this shrimp turned up and started challenging him for his title.

_ “Near _ ,” the old man said, tapping his well-shined shoe. “Care to explain  _ this? _ ” Rendered on the wallpaper with astounding skill for uncoordinated six-year-old fingers was a charcoal sketch of Near’s doll. It even included the hairline crack across its temple. Because of fucking course, Near couldn’t even  _ draw on the wall  _ using  _ crayons  _ and  _ stick figures  _ like a normal kid. 

Near didn’t look at Roger. Instead, he held up Isaac and looked into his glassy eyes intently. He muttered something too soft to hear. 

“What was that young man?” Roger asked. “Speak up, these ears are too old for your mumbling nonsense.” This time, Near made eye contact with Roger. He opened and shut his mouth like he  _ wanted _ to explain himself but he  _ couldn’t.  _ Instead, he turned back to the doll. 

“Isaac… why did you do that? You knew Roger would get angry.” And angry Roger got. Near’s punishment for not only drawing on the wall but for attempting to blame it on a  _ toy  _ of all things—Really, did this boy think he was so clever and Roger such a fool that such a trick would work?—was to clean off not only the wall he’d defiled, but to scrub every wall in every communal space in the whole mansion. 

“It takes work to run a house this big,” Roger grumbled, handing Near the necessary cleaning supplies. “And we are severely understaffed. Get scrubbing.”

From where they were spying around the corner, Mello was nearly as mad as Roger. Not for any good reason, this vague hatred he had seemed to rear its head whenever Near did anything. But Matt stared at the wall with doubt. He’d seen the results of Linda dragging Near into her art projects. Unless Near was holding out on her, there was no way he could sketch like that. 

It continued like this for more than a year. Near only spoke with his doll. He got top marks on tests. And he always managed to get in trouble. Until finally, a particularly horrible incident arose just past that yearlong mark.

Roger found his entire office destroyed. Books were shredded. Furniture was smashed. His entire collection of pinned bugs was completely beyond repair. And sitting in the middle of it all, looking very smug for an inanimate object, was Isaac. 

Near, who happened to be upending his room looking for that very toy at the time, heard his name screeched from across the manor. 

“What were you THINKING?!” Roger raved. Matt, Mello and a few other children eavesdropped shamelessly outside the door. They didn’t want to miss any of the drama. “My bugs! My books! How on earth did you manage to tip over this shelf?!  _ It was bolted to the wall!!!” _ There was a leathery creak as Roger slumped into his semi-eviscerated chair. “I just don’t understand. You have so much potential Near. You’ll go a whole month never doing anything worse than making a mess of your toys, and even then, you always pick them up when you’re reminded. Then something like this will happen! You never seem angry or upset. I can’t figure out what sets you off. So why? Why are you  _ like this?” _

And then, for the first time since he set foot in Wammy’s house, Near spoke directly to another human being.

“…It was Isaac,” he said, so soft that the eavesdroppers at the door didn’t even catch it.

“…What?” His voice came stronger this time:

“I am not responsible for this. It was Isaac.” 

Near spent the rest of the day sweeping the office, and then every room in the rest of the manor. That day was also the first time Roger tried to confiscate Isaac. But Near found the doll waiting expectantly on his bed when he returned to his room that evening.

Near, being an intelligent child, quickly learned not to blame things on his doll. 

Mello, another intelligent child, never did learn how to stay out of trouble.

They found themselves standing side by side in Roger’s office all too often. Mello’s most frequent crimes involved being rude and disrespectful or fighting with the other children. Near’s were childish pranks and vandalism. In cases where Roger honestly couldn’t say whodunnit, he would bring them both in. At least they never blamed each other. Mello would never allow another to take credit for his actions, good or bad. Near hung his head and passively accepted every accusation and consequence. But he, unlike Mello, never admitted to anything.

They started cleaning a lot more floors together. 

Mello considered this an additional form of punishment in and of itself.

Once the idea came to him, Roger began taking Isaac away from Near time and time again. But no matter where he hid it—on the tallest shelf, in the false bottom of a drawer, even in a locked safe once—Near stole his doll back within an hour. And Near had to be stealing it. How else could it be finding its way back to him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! Stay safe, stay spooky, and stay the fuck away from creepy dolls.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is a little late but that's fine.   
IMPORTANT TRIGGER WARNINGS: Abuse/Manipulation, Referenced/Implied Self-Harm, Character Death, and Mello being a god damn idiot.  
Let me know if you think of better title for this fic, I don't like the current one but I had to put something.

Matt was eleven the first time he heard strange voices coming from Near’s room. 

See, Matt wasn’t normally inclined to nosiness. But he, like all children at Wammy’s house, was inclined to curiosity. 

The door muffled the voices too much to pick out any words, but what made Matt pause was the tone. First was Near, and he was… upset. His voice contained more emotion than Matt had seen from him in three whole years. And then came the second voice, which gave him chills. It was high pitched and mocking. He put his ear against the door and just barely made out Near saying, 

“Stop it.”

There came a light, childish giggle. 

“ _ Stop it.”  _ And accompanying these words, a sob. 

Matt knocked on the door. 

When it opened, Near’s face was just as much of a blank slate as it always was, but his eyes seemed a little red and his cheeks a little damp. 

“…What is it?” he whispered. Near still wasn’t great at talking to people. He was getting better, gradually, but when he did speak, it didn’t always come out strong. On rare occasions, he would open his mouth and nothing came out at all, so he would turn and relay what he wanted to say through Isaac. Matt peered over his head. The doll in question perched on the bed with a glossy porcelain smirk.

“I was… Well, it seemed like you were—I mean… Are you okay Near?”

“Perfectly.”

“Oh. I just… I was walking by and I heard your voice and you sounded pretty shaken up.” Near nodded, already inching the door closed.

“I see. Thank you for your concern, but you are mistaken. Goodbye.” And then the door clicked shut.

But the very next day, Matt hesitated when passing Near’s room, remembering that eerie voice from before. And then his heart nearly leaped out of his chest when he paused to listen and heard that voice again, softer this time, but unmistakable. He looked up and down the hall the make sure it was truly deserted—it was one of those beautiful days right before a big test, so everyone was either playing outside or studying—before he crouched down to press his ear to the crack under the door.

Something in his chest crumbled to hear Near well and truly sobbing, stifled like he was trying to hide behind a pillow.

“I’ll be good. I’ll be good. I’ll be good, I promise,” he begged, “Please—please don’t hurt me.” And then that voice again, that awful voice and Matt heard it clearly for the first time:

_ “But you haven’t been good, have you, Nate? You’ve been very, very bad.” _ Matt grit his teeth, but the voice whispered on.  _ “If only they knew how sick you are. They would agree: You don’t deserve to be here, making up your little world with your stupid baby games because you can’t handle what’s inside your own head. You don’t deserve this room, those nice soft clothes, the delicious food you eat every night, you don’t even deserve to be around the other children. Not a smile, not a word, why my dear, sweet, silly Nate, you don’t deserve a damn thing.”  _ Matt realized that the disturbing but still logical, safe explanations he was pondering (Maybe Near was just playing, maybe he was practicing some freaky ventriloquist stunt) didn’t check out. Because Near continued to cry and gasp for breath even as the unknown voice droned on. <s> </s>

“No—stay away from me,” Near said. “I’m not crazy. I am not crazy and Isaac is not real.”

_ “That’s where you’re wrong Nate. You are always, always right but this is where you get it wrong because I’m very—”  _ Matt opened the door, and the illusion shattered. 

Isaac was sitting at the top of a tower of dice in the center of the room. He leered down like an idol atop an altar. Matt looked around and found Near curled up in a shaking ball on his bed. He wordlessly took a blanket from the foot of the bed and covered up Isaac. He untucked the sheet and wrapped it around Near. 

The younger boy was taking careful, controlled breaths. When he raised his head he was once again expressionless.

“Go away,” he said. Matt thought for a moment about what he could say to make this better.

“I was looking for a player two for this new game I’ve got. Wanna join?” Near scrubbed at his face with his sleeves and shook his head.

“I’m not fond of video games.”

“Have you ever tried them?”

“Briefly. A fighting game, in the living room. I beat Mello.” Matt smiled, remembering that incident.

“This isn’t a fighting game. It’s a problem-solving game. There are lots of puzzles.” Near looked up and pinned him with an unblinking stare. “Wanna see if we can beat it in under an hour?”

“…Okay,” he said, and he crawled out of his sheet cocoon. He clung to Matt’s stripy sleeve as the older boy led him into the hall and kicked the door shut behind them.

Matt wished there was a lock for that door. Ten locks, a hundred, Matt would slide them all closed click by satisfying click. He wished the door was more impenetrable than the encryption code on the files detailing L’s cases. (He’d hacked Roger’s computer once, and got into everything but that.) He wished he could pick the whole room up and chuck it into a bottomless chasm. 

But there wasn’t, and he couldn’t, so Matt took Near to the living room instead (not his room, Mello might be studying there), the safe, cozy living room with worn rugs and armchairs and old books, and they beat his game in forty-five minutes. So they played another. And another. They’d gone through most of Matt’s collection by dinnertime. 

“Hey,” Matt said later that evening, catching Near’s arm in the hallway as everyone retired to bed. “Will you be alright?” Near nodded and removed his hand.

“Thank you, Matt,” he said. And then the door clicked shut. Matt turned to go. He heard creaky hinges and looked back.

Near’s door was open, just an inch, a bar of light spilling into the corridor. It stayed that way. Matt mustered a wobbly smile and went to bed. 

From that day on if Matt was passing Near’s room, he would listen. And if he heard voices, he would open the door, hide the doll, and take Near away to go play video games or solve puzzles or color with Linda. 

But for all Matt’s efforts Near still had to go back to his room at the end of the night. It was at night that Matt worried the most. Near was all on his own in the night.

They were thirteen and Near was eleven and Mello was angry, angry because he finally scored highest last week, but this week they were back to the typical testing hierarchy. Mello went after the younger boy as soon as they saw him in the corridor and Matt rushed to intervene. Mello had Near by the collar of his shirt and he was snarling, spitting insults but then Matt said his name—

_ “Mello,”— _ in a way that caught his full attention. 

“What!?” he snapped. And Matt pointed to where Near’s shirt was riding up his stomach. 

There were bruises. Round, quarter-sized bruises and vicious red welts marring his skin. Mello yanked at the shirt to confirm that they trailed up his abdomen, but Near pulled away before he could investigate further.

Matt did his best to read Near’s stalwart attempt at a poker face. Was he embarrassed? No, Matt realized, it went deeper than that, Near was  _ ashamed _ .

Mello grabbed Near’s arm and pulled up his sleeve and this time, he didn’t pull away. They were all silent as they took in the scabbed-over slash marks.

Mello was the first to speak. “Pressure of being Number One too much for you, you little twit?” 

“ _ Mello! _ ” Matt hissed with a mounting desire to punch the blond in the face.

“What?!” 

“Those are defensive wounds!” Mello scowled. He knew that. He  _ knew that _ , okay? He wasn’t stupid. They were training to become detectives; they’d seen enough crime scene photos to recognize this kind of thing. But he hadn’t wanted to. Because there was a part of him that almost thought it would be better if these were self-inflicted than if someone was coming at Near with a  _ knife _ . If Near was hurting himself? Well, that was just an unfortunate truth about this orphanage. Those like A didn’t make it. Those like B fucking lost it. Not everyone could cope by drawing pretty pictures or immersing themselves in digital worlds. But if someone else was hurting Near, that was a problem for several reasons. That was something all of them had to worry about. 

Mello let go of the smaller boy’s arm. Near shoved his sleeve down and took a step back. Mello approached, matching the space he’d created and then shrinking it down even more.

“Who’s hurting you?” he asked. Near shook his head, jaw wired shut. At this point, Mello was backing him into the wall. “ _ Tell me who’s hurting you _ ,” he growled. “Tell me! Tell me so I can kick the sorry son of a bitch’s ass out of orbit!” Because everyone in this damn orphanage should know by now:  _ no one  _ bullies Near but Mello. (Is it truly bullying, teasing, riling, whatever word Mello uses in his head to make it okay—if Near doesn’t seem to mind, or care enough to notice?) They can shun him, sure, but outright bully him? No one.  _ No one  _ gets to do that. And going at him with a knife!? Mello knows he’s not perfect, he knows he has what some would call ‘anger issues,’ and ‘violent tendencies.’ But he also knows this is  _ way _ out of line. 

Besides, hurting Near physically was never his goal. Beating him with his mind was the whole point of their rivalry. Especially since... well. Matt has said before that sometimes, he thinks Near looks more like a doll than Isaac does. China skin, soft curls, vacant eyes, still as stone and barely breathing if he was lost in thought. (Isaac, on the other hand, had eyes that were sharp, acid green, and never stopped moving.) What was the point of trying to hurt something that looked like it could shatter in an instant?

Near shook his head again. Mello’s blood was boiling, he was gearing up to grab the smaller boy and shake until his secrets came rattling out but there was a hand on his shoulder, and then Matt pushed him aside. He crouched down below Near’s eye level and said,

“Mello’s doing a shit job of showing it, but he means well. We’re both worried about you. So please, tell us what’s going on.” Near’s eyes squeezed shut. His lip trembled and he kept shaking his head. When he opened his mouth and forced the words out, something in Mello was deeply shaken because he’d  _ never  _ heard his rival so scared, so close to tears.

“I  _ can’t _ .” Matt made a soft noise of understanding.

“You can’t, but you want to?” Near took a breath. He nodded. “Are you scared whoever did this will hurt you if you do?”

“They’ll hurt us both,” he murmured. “Mello too.” Mello scoffed. 

“Like I’m scared of anyone at this orphanage! I can take them, just fucking tell us already!” 

“Mello’s right,” Matt said reassuringly. “You don’t have to worry. We’ll make sure no one’s hurt. Please tell us?”

“I can’t,” he insisted. “I  _ can’t _ .”

“…Is it Isaac?” Mello would have snapped at his friend that this was the most idiotic theory he’d ever heard if not for how Near reacted. 

He lurched towards Matt like he couldn’t stand without clinging to something solid any longer and started sobbing into his shirt. They curled up together on the corridor floor and Mello… Mello couldn’t believe it.

Near. Robot Near. Emotionless hollow-eyed snarky apathetic Near was crying and shaking and clearly fucking  _ terrified _ at the mere mention of that doll. 

Matt gathered Near up and took him to their room and made him a sheet cocoon like he’d done it a million times before, and Mello wondered how the fuck he’d missed  _ this _ . He considered giving Near some of his chocolate and quickly dismissed the thought. …But he did run down to the kitchen and stole some cookies for him.

After that day Near would come to them sometimes, in the middle of the night, quietly afraid and afraid to show it. Matt wrapped him in hugs and blankets until he stopped shaking and let him share the bed. Mello tolerated his presence in their room until it got to the point where Matt would let out an exaggerated sigh and badger Mello into joining them. It was hot and cramped, the three of them in Matt’s bed, but Mello didn’t mind as much as he pretended to. And in the morning, he’d inspect Near for cuts and bruises, and if he found any, he’d fix them up. (Really, the idiot had let those cuts _ _ on his arm _ _ go completely untreated. And he was supposed to be Number One; Mello called bullshit.)

Mello considered it common sense to be a little more wary of Isaac’s glassy eyes after that. 

His paranoia was justified a few months later.

Near was in trouble again. Big trouble. His Life Would Never Be the Same Trouble.

There was a pile of frogs on Roger’s bed. Dead frogs. Dead, stinky, half-dissected frogs. Near left them there, allegedly. Because he was the only one with the dexterity and skill, built up from years of painting and modifying his toys and models, to take out a frog’s eye with its orbital nerve perfectly intact when they dissected them during a science lesson last week.

Roger was on his usual tangent. Near was standing in his office with his head lowered, quietly waiting out the lecture. He was hoping to get out of this with nothing worse than having to dispose of the frogs and maybe wash all the sheets in the orphanage. 

But Roger was beyond angry this time. He had passed angry into being… hopelessly flummoxed. 

“I just don’t know what to do. Nothing has worked, punishing you, rewarding you, ignoring you—nothing. If this continues Near… I’m wondering if it might be best if we send you away. Perhaps you would do better in a normal orphanage.”

No.

They couldn’t. 

They couldn’t possibly. An orphanage without tests, challenges, puzzles? An orphanage where winning meant winning people over instead of winning the best numbers? He would die of boredom. His brain would go to rot, it would roll over in his skull and  _ die. _

“Wammy wouldn’t allow that,” Near reasoned, voice soft and externally unperturbed. “I have been Number One since I arrived. I am the best candidate for becoming the next L.” Roger gave him a hard glare behind his spectacles. 

“It is unbecoming of the next L to put  _ frogs  _ in people’s beds,” he said through gritted teeth. 

“Roger is only our caretaker,” Near insisted, “This is Wammy’s decision.”

“Do not presume to think I have so little sway with Mr. Wammy. He wouldn’t like it, but if I convinced him it’s what’s best for you, and for L’s legacy, you would be gone within a day. And…” he sighed and adjusted his spectacles. “I truly am starting to think it might be for the best.”

No. No, no he couldn’t. Near could barely handle being in this tiny, isolated world he’d constructed for himself on some days. A world consisting of his room, the corridors, the living room, and dining room and the rest of the house and  _ sometimes _ , on a rare spring afternoon, the grounds outside. How could he possibly handle anything bigger? He would have to give up everything if he left. His connections with people, places, objects, six whole years of connections. That was half his life. The better half by far. He might even have to give up his name. He couldn’t imagine going back to being Nate Rivers.  _ Near didn’t want to be Nate Rivers. _

It wasn’t his proudest moment, what came out of his mouth next. Certainly not his most rational. 

“I didn’t put the frogs in Roger’s bed. It was Isaac.”

Roger took Isaac, dropped him in a plastic bag, tied a knot in it and tore into the doll with a hammer. He shattered Isaac until he was nothing but scraps of hair and cloth and porcelain dust and glassy eyes. Then he threw the bag out in the trash and thought that was the end of it.

Roger was found the next morning, dead on the floor of his frog-less room with his head smashed in with a hammer. 

Near found a plastic bag under his bed that evening. He opened it with shaking fingers and dutifully began to put his doll back together, piece by piece. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Doll Violence  
...I've realized this fic is a downward trajectory from tragic to fucking ridiculous.

Mr. Wammy returned for Roger’s funeral. It was the first time any of them had seen him since Christmas. He brought with him a young man with messy dark hair, loose, ill-fitting clothes, and a spine that curled like a question mark.

Near stared at the man throughout the whole eulogy. He wondered if he was the only one in the orphanage who’d deduced that this man must be L.

They buried Roger in the small graveyard by the chapel. Near knew that one of these unmarked graves was the resting place of A, the ghost of Wammy’s House. They all took turns throwing dirt on the coffin and the look on Mr. Wammy’s face as he stepped forward… It was a grief Near couldn’t know. He knew grief. He was an orphan; every orphan knew grief. But this was the grief of losing someone you’d known so long they were tied to your very soul.

_ “It’s all your faaaault,” _ Isaac sang in his ear.

When it was Near’s turn to step up to the grave, he gave a silent apology.  _ I’m sorry. I should have lied. Sometimes, it’s better to lie. I will remember that.  _ Then his dirt hit the wooden lid with a  _ thunk _ and he made way for the next in line.

He found himself standing beside the man who must be L. L peered down at him through his fringe, craning his neck like an owl. Near peered up at him through his curls, tilting his head like a congregation regarding a cross on the wall. 

“Who is this?” the man asked, pointing a long, crooked finger at Isaac bundled in his arms.

Isaac had undergone some wardrobe changes when Near rebuilt him. He no longer wore an old-fashioned lacy frock, something parents might dress their child in for a christening. He now had a miniature of Matt’s favorite shirt, black and white and stripy. He also had a tiny handcuff around his wrist attaching him to the bigger handcuff around Near’s wrist. 

Near looked up at the man who must be L and thought, if there’s anyone he could tell, regardless of whether they believe him or not, it was this man.

“This is Isaac,” Near said, and he held the doll out for inspection. L’s fingers wandered over his messy gold curls, hovered over his glassy green eyes, lingered at the cracks in his face. Near leaned in close and whispered, “Isaac is the prime suspect of Roger’s murder.” L’s eyes widened. His thumb went to worry at his lower lip, which curved into an intrigued smile. His neck craned at an even more acute angle and Near wondered if it would snap. If the vertebrae would fly apart into messy bone fragments just like Roger’s head did.

L crouched beside him and whispered, “How certain are you of your deduction?”

“Ninety-nine-point-oh-one,” Near said, voice just a bit louder with his conviction. 

“Motive?” L asked.

“Isaac hated Roger. Roger was always taking him away from me. Two days ago, he took Isaac away and smashed him with a hammer, so Isaac came back to do the same.” L eyed the doll’s cracks and messy glue patches. 

“And now you’ve captured your killer so he can’t strike again,” he observed. Near nodded. “But what about you?” L asked. The boy tried to look much braver than he felt when he said,

“I will be fine. A parasite never immediately kills its host.” L smiled at him, startlingly sincere, and reached out with his crooked fingers to ruffle Near’s hair.

There would be times, in the months and years that followed, when Near would cling to the memory of that smile and that hair ruffle like a lifeline. 

“I wish Near the best of luck with both his investigation and losing this parasite,” L told him, and then it was his turn to approach the grave. Near’s mouth set in a determined frown and he glared at the doll dangling from his wrist.

_ You are _ _ never going to hurt anyone again,  _ he thought. High, mocking laughter was the only reply he got.

L stood before the grave of Wammy’s House’s keeper and threw a handful of dirt in. He stepped aside for the next person and wavered. 

The child behind him was a barely restrained firestorm. His breathing was harsh, ragged, and while L knew his blonde hair stirred from the chilly breeze it seemed like it was moving in response to the anger coursing through him, from the top of his head to his fingers and knuckles, white around their small allotment of dirt. 

The boy turned to look up at L with burning blue eyes and said, “I’m gonna catch the sick fucker who did this.” L blinked. The boy turned back to the grave. “Roger was a crotchety old coot who made me scrub more floors than I can count, but he didn’t deserve this. I’m going to get him justice, even if no one else can.” The words carried such a weight to them that they both knew this was no mere promise. It was a vow.

L gently took the boy’s fist and loosened his fingers until the dirt trickled into the grave. Then he stared into his eyes, matching his intensity and said, “If no one else can, Mello can.”

The boy nodded. L smiled. He patted the boy’s shoulder—he didn’t think Mello would appreciate him ruffling his hair—and turned to head back to the house. 

After night fell L wandered the halls of Wammy’s house, restless without a case to work on. He’d left them all behind in Japan. He walked in a haze, indulging nostalgia. The grain of the banister, the texture of the wallpaper, the cold of the kitchen tile. Not a thing had changed after all these years.

He entered the living room and found a kid in a black and white striped shirt curled up in a chair staring out the window. His handheld game was abandoned on the table next to him, emitting an upbeat tune and washing the boy in shifting colored light. 

L approached and perched in the adjacent armchair. 

“Is Matt having trouble sleeping?” The boy nodded. “His brain won’t shut off?” He nodded again. L could empathize. “Lolly for your thoughts?” he asked, taking a lollypop out of his pocket and offering it up. Matt took it and smiled weakly.

“Cherry’s my favorite.”

“Cherry is good. I prefer strawberry though. It’s sweeter.” The redhead popped the lolly in his mouth and hesitated for a long moment before speaking.

“There’s something evil in this house. It’s hurting my friend and I don’t know how to help him.” L nodded sagely and brought out another lollypop. He took a lick and his mouth quirked up in amusement. Apples. 

“You can’t help anyone else if you can’t save yourself first. I know that sounds selfish but being selfish is how you survive.” L stood and made to leave the room. “Don’t worry,” he said over his shoulder, “I will not tell Wammy Matt wasn’t in bed.”

“You’re not selfish,” Matt said. L halted his exit. “You’ve dedicated your life to keeping world peace. I don’t think that’s selfish at all.” L smiled around his lollypop. He turned around and raised a single finger to his lips before disappearing back upstairs.

The next morning, Quillish Wammy and the mysterious stranger he brought with him were both gone. 

A Wammy’s House graduate was selected to take Roger’s place. Ms. Inez, code letter I, returned to the manor like a predictable weekly cartoon show. The grey rental car from the airport trundled up outside the iron-wrought gate, and Inez stepped out. She hefted her suitcase, threw back her shoulders, and started marching down the driveway.

All in all, Ms. Inez did seem much better suited for running an orphanage, if her Master’s in Education and her Ph.D. in Psychology—plus the fact that she actually  _ liked  _ children, was anything to go by.

Mello didn’t give a fuck about the change in management. He was on the warpath. He had a murder to solve and a killer to catch and his number one suspect was still  _ Near’s stupid doll. _

Matt managed to convince Near to take breaks from the handcuff thing, thank fucking God. Mello ran out of kinky bondage jokes after the first week and after that, it was just  _ weird _ . Besides, Isaac was not allowed in their room, full stop. So if Near was attached to Isaac, he wasn’t allowed either. 

Near tried to bear with it, but he broke down and started stuffing Isaac in a lockbox before the month was out.

They were waking up from one of their impromptu sleepovers when Mello and Matt locked eyes and looked down at the pajama-clad boy breathing even between them. Mello’s hand hovered over the red band on Near’s wrist, a mark of the missing handcuff. 

“You believe him, right?” Matt asked. “I know it sounds crazy but there’s no other way. That doll is cursed.” Mello thumbed the beads on his rosary— _ Our Father, Hail Mary Hail Mary Hail Mary, Our Father _ —as he answered.

“There’s always another way Matty. But at the same time… More things in Heaven and Earth, right?”

“…than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” a sleepy voice finished. Near stirred, sat up, rubbed his eyes and yawned. “I thought Mello was too much of a punk to know Shakespeare,” he said with a smug little smirk. Mello threw a pillow at him.

“Fuck off! This punk studies more than anyone else in the orphanage, you baby-powder looking twat!”

“That’s because Mello is not a genius, like me.” Which was utter bullshit and they all knew it. Matt still set about getting them up and changed and ready for breakfast before things could descend into bloodshed. 

When they stepped outside the room Isaac was waiting, propped against the opposite wall.

The lockbox never held him. But Isaac wasn’t allowed in Matt and Mello’s room, and for whatever reason, he seemed to be following that rule. For now.

Near took the handcuff key off the chain around his neck. He unlocked them, slipped his wrist in, and adjusted them as tight as they’d go. 

“Matt and Mello should hurry, or we’ll miss breakfast,” he said as he started down the stairs. The older boys followed with worried glances.

Ms. Inez called Near and Mello into her office on a brittle November day when the last leaves were falling. The boys shared a look of confusion before they stepped inside.

“I haven’t done anything,” Mello said. “You?” Near shook his head. “You sure?” He looked down at the doll dangling from his wrist.

“…If I have, we are about to find out.” Mello nodded and opened the door. 

“Boys,” Ms. Inez said, looking far wearier than she ought to in Roger’s worn leather chair, clutching a flip phone white-knuckled. Her eyes were red-rimmed behind her glasses. “I have some bad news.”

L and Wammy were dead.

Yes, they were killed by Kira. 

No, L did not name an official successor before he passed. 

However, she was sure Wammy would have wanted them to solve L’s final case together.

Mello looked at Near, hunched over a puzzle, and Near looked at him with big dark eyes and said he would be honored to work with Mello. And Mello was… he was reeling. Several bombshells were just dropped in less than thirty seconds and he wasn’t sure how to take it. 

A few years ago, the idea of working together with Near to do  _ anything  _ would have been completely out of the question. But now, Mello realized that he’d somehow grown to like this snarky little shit. He’d seen that Near was not a perfect robot. Near had just as many monsters as Mello did, he was simply more adept at hiding them. Unless… Unless he was around Mello or Matt.

(He was that way with speaking too, Mello realized. Near was still quiet, especially when the teachers tried to coax answers out of him in class. He responded but he was curt, soft-spoken. Around Matt and Mello however, he was practically a chatterbox, sharp tongue divulging every brilliant insight or insult he had.)

Then Mello saw Isaac peeking out from behind Near’s arm and thought,  _ Haha how about  _ ** _ hell no _ ** _ …  _ Only to reconsider yet again, because how on earth could the next L handle what Near had attached to his wrist in addition to the burden of the world?

“I’ll think about it,” was the answer he gave. The others nodded in understanding. Near gave him space for the rest of the day, for which Mello was grateful. He needed time to think.

That night, Matt startled awake when his roommate started screaming bloody murder. 

“GET IT OFF!!! GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT FUCKING OFF ME—” It was too dark to see a thing, but Matt could hear his friend thrashing around. He fell out of bed as he scrambled for the flashlight under his bedside table and clicked it on as soon as his fingers found the switch. 

Everything stopped. 

Matt swiveled the light. Mello was holding a limp cloth-and-porcelain doll. The handcuff chain around one of its hands was broken, and in the other, it brandished a letter opener. There were scratches all over Mello’s face and hands. They closely resembled the marks they’d sometimes find under Near’s shirt. 

Mello dropped the doll to the floor. He started shaking.

“I’ll get Near,” Matt said, making for the door.

“ _ Hell no, _ don’t leave me alone with it!!!” Matt took Isaac with him. He left the light on for Mello before he shut their door. He kept his flashlight on the doll the whole time he was in the dark hallway, and he noticed Near’s door was ajar when he knocked. 

“Matt?” The younger boy must have risen from a rare state of restful sleep when he answered, and Matt felt somewhat bad about interrupting him. “What’s wrong?” Matt held out Isaac. Near’s eyes widened. He immediately looked at the severed chain dangling from his wrist. 

“It attacked Mello. He’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Near whispered. “I’m sorry. This was not supposed to happen.”

“It’s not your fault,” Matt said. Near took the doll with trembling hands. He looked like he’d just welded two-hundred-pound weights to his shoulder blades when he saw the bloody letter opener.

“Matt is positive that Mello is okay?”

“Well he’s pissed, but there doesn’t seem to be anything worse than a few scratches.”

“I’m sorry,” Near said again.

“I know.”

“I will stay awake tonight. To keep an eye on Isaac.”

“Thank you Near,” Matt said. And the door clicked shut.

Mello left Wammy’s House before the week was out. Matt followed soon after. Near sat in his room and prepared to take on an impossible case, an impossible role. He shuddered away from Isaac and tried to remember L’s smile. 

Then, he vowed to bring the detective justice.


	4. Chapter 4

Near didn’t see Mello or Matt for another five years. But Mello came to him for the photograph, just as Near knew he would. 

The detective wasn’t surprised to see the criminal holding his taskforce member at gunpoint, the scarring on his face, or the leather. They had both changed. But Mello’s rosary and his burning eyes were still there after half a decade and—

The ever-shrinking sentimental side of Near quietly observed that it was nice to see something familiar. 

They played their game. They traded information. Near tossed the photo across the room in a perfectly dramatic fashion and he was quite pleased with himself. He turned around and waited for Mello to do the same because this was where they would part ways again.

“Near.” Or maybe not. “I have one more favor to ask.” Mello pointed his gun at Isaac dangling from the handcuff around Near’s wrist. “Let me take that off your hands.”

Oh. 

…So he was right.

There were rare occasions when Near wished he wasn’t always right.

“Is Mello sure?” he asked, and the blond nodded. Near took the key from around his neck and unlocked the handcuffs for the first time in far too long. The first time since Mello left.

He stood and made his way across the room. He could sense the SPK members twitching with every step and it made him want to smirk. Yes, Mello was dangerous, but Near was used to being around dangerous things and Mello didn’t scare him. 

He handed over the doll and the key. Standing before him, Near noted that Mello had gotten taller. That was funny too, although he couldn't place exactly why. 

The mob boss stared at him for several moments. He turned to go. Near called his name and said, “My offer still stands.” Mello grinned, all teeth.

“I’ll think about it.” And then he was gone.

“We sleep in shifts tonight Matty,” Mello declared.

“Huh?” Matt looked up from the surveillance footage—not just of Misa Amane now, but also Kiyome Takada. “Why?”

“Kira isn’t the only murderous asshole we’ve got to deal with.” They both stared at Isaac, a demonic little elf on the shelf reclining in a nest of wires. Matt looked back to Mello and gave him a sharp salute.

They locked Isaac away in a vault and Matt took the first watch. He played idle games without headphones and alternated glances between the vault and the surveillance screens long into the night, half-praying to whatever God Mello believed in that it would remain shut.

By some miracle, it did.

Then it was morning and they were preparing for—well. They were preparing to ride or die.

“Listen to me,” Mello said urgently, “Unless you’re  _ completely sure  _ that the people chasing you are cops, you don’t stop driving. These Kira fanatics are lunatics. They think they’re justice. They  _ will  _ kill you if they catch you. Kira’s enemies don’t get due process.” Matt rolled his eyes as he shut the trunk of his car.

“Alright, I get it, Mello.” He’d been hearing this spiel all morning long.

Mello put a hand on Matt’s shoulder and turned him to face him. He pulled Matt’s goggles down to his neck so they could look eye to eye. “Promise me you’ll make it out of this.” Matt’s annoyance melted away. 

“I promise. But…” He looked down at what Mello was holding. “Do you have to take the doll with you?” 

“Give it up Matt.”

“Seriously man, we both know that thing has absolute shit karma. What could you possibly need it for?” Mello ignored him and tossed Isaac into the passenger seat of the truck that would feature in phase two of their plan. “Don’t take it with you, Mel,” the redhead begged. “You know I need you to make it out of this too—”

“The doll is coming with me, Matt.” And that was when Matt realized what he’d been missing ever since Mello came back from his meeting with Near with the doll in tow.

“…This is a suicide mission. You son of a bitch. You’re taking it down with you, you don’t plan on coming back at all—” Mello stepped forward with a low growl and clamped a gloved hand over Matt’s mouth to shut him up.

“Not if I can fucking help it.” He showed Matt the weapon he’d commissioned before his jig with the mob blew sky high. He told Matt the final part of the plan. 

And Matt hoped. He hoped so hard that this would work.

“L told me something once about how you can’t help anyone if you can’t save yourself first. Now, it’s your turn. Promise me.” And Mello—that complete  _ bastard _ . He sealed the promise with a kiss.

Light, Aizawa, and Matsuda found Miheal Kheel a good hundred feet away from the roaring church fire. Blood trailed behind him. He’d been crawling away by his fingertips down to his last breath. He died trying to reach the road as he bled out. 

Light frowned. Takada must not have written his name in the Death Note after all. He doubted she would have bothered to specify he die like this unless she was feeling especially vindictive. The fact that he was wearing a motorcycle helmet supported that theory but… Oh well. Even if she didn’t write his name, it hardly mattered in the end. 

Aizawa crouched down to inspect the body and Light listened as he narrated his findings. There were slashes running up his legs and across his hands. Most were shallow thanks to the leather. Matsuda wondered aloud if the injuries were caused by shrapnel from an explosion that set the church alight. 

Then Aizawa pointed out the twenty-three stab wounds in his back. 

Additionally, there was an empty gun in his hand and a bullet in his foot. 

“Why the hell would he shoot himself in the foot?” Aizawa muttered. Light traced the path of blood back towards the church some way and stopped.

Lying on the ground was a doll. Porcelain-and-cloth body, half-charred prison outfit. Next to it was a jagged, bloody scrap of metal. Its head was completely blown away. Light used the cuff of his sleeve to wipe off the bullet embedded in the ground amid the shattered shards. 

Huh. 

Odd. 

It looked like silver. 

Light recalled how years ago when L was still alive, he disappeared without explanation for a week. Light had been almost insulted at the time. What could be so important that it drew his attention away from Kira?

When L came back, he had new questions for Rem. Were there instruments of death out there other than the Death Notes? Say, for instance, a doll?

Light gathered up every porcelain crumb and cloth scrap, walked as close to the burning church as he could stand, and threw it all in the fire. He had enough to worry about.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter turned into a tonal roller-coaster. I blame Isaac. As soon as the vaguely ominous supernatural threat went away I jumped right back into humor and fluff.

Matt didn’t arrive at the hotel where the SPK was bunkered down until the next evening. Near didn’t bother asking how he found their secure location, why he took so long when he’d surely found it within an hour, or why he carried a duffel bag with all his personal belongings. Such questions would be pointless because they both knew the answers.

All Near said when Commander Rester escorted Matt in was, “I’ve been expecting you.”

“You’ve heard, right?” Matt asked. “On the news. They’re all saying…” It wasn’t just the news. Matt must have hacked into the police records describing the scene of Mello and Takada’s death by now. The detective sighed, rubbing his wrist where he used to be chained to his favorite doll. He felt so much lighter.

“We all owe Mello a great debt.”

“…That bastard,” Matt whispered. “He promised.”

“I’m sorry,” Near said, purely robotic. Matt winced and shook his head.

“…You’ve still got one more murderous asshole to catch, right? I want to help.” Near gave him a small smile. Matt stared. How could Near be smiling? Had he predicted this would happen from the start? He knew things didn’t end on the best terms between him and Mello but…

Matt was aware of two SPK members hovering in the background. Maybe Near was laying it on extra thick in front of them. After all, he was L now. He had expectations to uphold.

“I am glad I can rely on you, Matt,” Near said. “Before we get started, there is something you should see in the other room. Agent Halle?” The blonde chick, the one who’d kept Near and Mello in the loop about each other this whole time (and they both knew it, but they never said anything), stepped forward. She showed Matt into the connecting hotel suit, around the corner to the bedroom and—

Fuck. 

Holy shit.

Holy mother of fuck.

“Holy shit…” Aizawa breathed as his fingers dug into the pulse point on the criminal’s clammy wrist. “This guy is alive.

“What!?” Matsuda shouted, tearing his hypnotized gaze away from the blazing fire. He put a gentle hand on the blond’s back and waited—yes, there it was, the faintest rise and fall. “Oh my God, LIGHT—!” Aizawa elbowed his colleague’s kneecap, hard. Matsuda gave him a kicked puppy look until he hissed, 

“_Kira_,” trusting the sound of the fire would cover it up. Matsuda’s eyes widened as he realized that, while no one wanted to _believe_ Light was Kira _if_ he was… He would kill Mello. Or rather, Mihael Keehl. The only thing standing between the half-dead criminal and a heart attack was his motorcycle helmet.

“What is it Matsuda?” the head of the task force called from his place by the church, presumably looking for any sign that Takada escaped. 

“Light, ah, you shouldn’t stand so close to the fire! You’re making me nervous!” Matsuda lied with a very strained smile. Luckily, Light seemed to think he was too much of an idiot to pay him any notice. He walked back towards them with an obliging smirk.

“You two head back to headquarters,” Aizawa suggested, already on his phone to call for backup. “I’ll direct a team to search the nearby area for Takada, make sure the firefighters don’t trample the crime scene, call in forensics so we can try and figure out what happened to this poor fucker and make sure he gets back to the morgue.” Light nodded absentmindedly, mind already hours ahead. 

One thing was certain: That search team wouldn’t be finding Takada until the fire died down.

Aizawa had no doubt that more of the police force would be arriving soon, but that wasn’t the first call he made.

“Near, I have Mello. He’s alive but he might not be for long. What do you want me to do?” Aizawa heard the faintest noise on the other end, a sharp exhale that might have been a sigh of relief. 

“Agent Halle is on her way; she should arrive shortly. When she does, give Mello to her. The SPK will make sure he receives medical attention.” Even as he said it, a troop of fire trucks sped around the corner and across the lawn. A black car zipped right behind them.

“Got it,” Aizawa muttered. “I’ll do my best.” One of the firefighters approached with a medical kit, but Aizawa shook his head. He prayed to any higher power who might be listening for even a fraction of Light Yagami’s persuasiveness. “It’s too late,” he said, “He’s dead. You should try to get that fire under control, Takada might still be inside.” The firefighter looked grim. He hesitated. He should inspect the body himself but… surely a detective could properly identify a corpse. And while it was unlikely anyone could survive a blaze that ferocious, he’d witnessed miracles before. So he dutifully rushed over to help haul the hoses.

As the firefighter retreated, Aizawa found himself face to face with a woman who wore a business suit and a look of horror, transfixed by the flames. When she noticed Mello, she somehow managed to pale even more. She fell to her knees when she reached them, hands hovering like they were afraid to encounter cold flesh.

“Is he—”

“I need your help to get him out of here,” Aizawa said, and she immediately channeled her relief into determination.

If any of the firefighters had noticed someone driving away with an alleged corpse, they might have objected. But they were a bit pre-occupied. Aizawa watched them speed away, then looked at the pool of blood on the ground and wondered how the hell he was supposed to cover this up.

Just over twenty-four hours later in an undisclosed hotel room, Matt wondered what he’d done to deserve this. To be so lucky not just once, but twice. Because lying on his stomach on the queen-sized bed, bruised and bloody and covered in bandages was—

“…Mello?” The blonde cracked an eyelid and a smile.

“Hey neeeeeerd,” he slurred. And then, because he must have been doped to hell and back on pain meds, he asked something Matt couldn’t make out about water.   
Water? What water? The water pouring down Matt’s face as he started ugly crying all over the place? That water perhaps?

Oh, no, Agent Halle stepped forward to pass Mello the glass of water on his bedside table. Christ, Matt, get it together.

Matt did his best to get it together. He went and collapsed at the edge of Mello’s bed so he could bury his face in his arms and keep crying. He heard a hiss of pain followed by fingers carding through his hair and that was… That was fine. It was more than fine. It was more than he could have hoped for.

“Yee have little fuckin faith,” Mello said with a low laugh. “I promised I’d be back, didn't I?” Matt spent the next five minutes calling Mello every filthy insult he could think of through his tears. The idiot deserved it.

“How?” he eventually croaked, finally lifting his head. “The police report—you were stabbed in the back twenty-three times—”

“Yeah, and I can confirm that hurts like a biiiiitch. But look, Matty, listen, this is the secret. Five inches of cotton has trouble stabbing through a leatherjacket and a bulletvest no matter how cursed the cotton is. Or how much spiky metal it 'as."

“_You shot yourself in the foot._” Mello winced.

“Notgreat. Not the best moment fer me. Atall.” 

“Yeah, no shit!” Matt laughed, nuzzling Mello’s hand, one of the few places available to touch him without risk of causing him excruciating pain despite the medication. In Matt's opinion, he couldn't be too careful.

“Blackleather,” Mello said with a loopy grin. “Itsthe best. I live becus of blackleather.” And then he started humming Black Leather by Joan Jett to the best of his scattered ability.

“Oh my god I hate you so much right now,” Matt laughed, or sobbed, he wasn’t sure. He heard a soft shuffling noise behind him and turned to see that Halle had departed. Near hovered in the doorway twirling his hair and clinging to a giant Hello Kitty plushy, just in case it wasn’t already obvious that they were _in Japan_. “Not as much as I hate you though!” Matt said, rounding on the detective. “You—you just—”

“I thought it would be better to show Matt, rather than try to explain,” Near said by way of defense.

“_No! Tell_ don’t _show_ Near! As soon as I walked through the door you should’ve said, Don’t worry Matt, Mello’s alive, he’s in the other room he’s just extremely fucking high right now. That was the FIRST THING you should have told me!” Near hid behind his Hello Kitty stuffy. It was disgustingly cute. Matt didn’t have the heart to hate him anymore. He collapsed back on Mello’s bed with a groan. Near tentatively approached and sat on the opposite corner from Matt. Matt eyed Hello Kitty suspiciously. 

“Can you…not?” For a millisecond, Near looked hurt. Then his face went blank and he slipped off the bed. “No—shit—I didn’t mean _leave_ it’s just… if that plushy comes to life and starts trying to strangle me I will freak the fuck out.” Mello snickered. Near smiled. 

“Don’t worry. I think Matt is safe from Hello Kitty.” Matt didn’t _feel_ like he was safe from Hello Kitty. Those beady little eyes held duplicitous secrets. 

There was a pause, which was eventually broken by Mello when he remarked, as if the thought had only just occurred to him: “Ey… Were all here.”

“Yes, we are,” Near confirmed.

“Its ben a minutie.” 

“That it has,” Matt said. 

“So… who wants to destroy Kira?” Near asked.

Commander Rester knocked. Because it was only polite and, as Agent Halle had put it, Near might want more time to reunite with his… friends. 

But no reply came from the door connecting the adjacent suits. In fact, there wasn’t any noise at all.

“Near?” the task-force agent called. “Agent Gevanni has returned from his mission. We should finish our preparations for tomorrow.” Still, no reply. 

Rester didn’t know if he should enter the room with his gun out or his hand over his eyes, so he was prepared to do either when he opened the door. A step over the threshold he called again, “Near?” He poked his head around the corner into the bedroom where Halle had dumped the half-dead mafia boss several hours ago. “Oh,” he said. And then, “Awwww.” And then, “Halle, Gevanni, come see this!” The other agents emerged from their pseudo-HQ and poked their heads around the corner with him. On the bed, the bandaged mafia boss was still sprawled gracelessly on his front. But snug as a bug under the covers on either side of him was his redheaded accomplice and Near. They were all sound asleep.

“Awwww,” Gevanni echoed. 

“Dammit,” Halle muttered. “And we’re not even allowed to take pictures.” The agents stood there for a moment, wondering why the hell their boss had to be so objectively adorable. “One of us has to wake him up. Not it.”

“Not it,” Rester seconded. Gevanni sighed and asked,

“Has anyone actually seen him sleep before?” The blond agents shook their heads. Never before had they witnessed Near sleeping. Certainly not so peacefully. “…Can’t we give him five more minutes?”

“We’re facing off against Kira tomorrow,” Halle reminded him. Gevanni and Rester both looked at the sleeping pile of geniuses and then looked back to her in a way that was almost entreating. “…Fine. Five more minutes.” 

That evening, Light made a trip to the morgue. 

It was a rare occurrence since, despite his murderous tendencies, Light wasn’t all that fond of corpses. But for this, he had to make an exception.

It bugged him. He’d taken Mihael Keehl’s name and his life but he still hadn’t looked upon his face. It hadn’t seemed important at the scene, not compared to making sure Takada took all the evidence that might ruin his plans out with her, and then he’d been derailed by that doll…

It couldn’t hurt, he thought, just to check. Just to be sure. 

Because Light had nightmares, regularly, about L rising from the grave to destroy him. This was why N and M’s challenges had been the first thing to strike a true chord of fear in him since the detective’s death. Through them, he once again felt dark eyes pinned to the back of his neck and he heard the rattle of chains. (In fact, he’d heard that noise coming so clearly from the other end of N’s first call that while the rest of the task-force looked among themselves confused, Light froze. He could never forget that sound. He’d been trying to for five years.)

He had to check. Just to be sure. 

He turned the lights on and stepped towards the far wall, where bodies were kept in neat little refrigerated drawers. The whole place smelled of ashes, ammonia, and embalming fluid. Light opened the first drawer only to immediately shut it, gagging on the smell of burnt flesh. 

Takada. 

He moved on to the next drawer and glanced at the bracelet around the corpse’s ankle. Haru Kobe. Male, thirty-five years old. Light tried to recall why the name was familiar and then he realized—this man must be a Kira victim. Haru Kobe was recently acquitted from three counts of theft and one count of attempted assault. The prosecutor was one of Mikami’s colleagues. The poor bastard’s death hadn’t even earned a mention on the evening news.

Light went on to the next drawer. A woman’s foot, bruised and mangled, poked out from under the sheet. Rōzu Yutsuko, twenty-two years old. A high-profile rape and murder victim—high profile only because such cases were rare in Kira’s world.

Light gripped the metal box until his knuckles turned white, staring at her ankle bracelet. Then he slammed the door shut. 

He continued down the line, body after body. None of the tags read Mihael Keehl, or even Mello. Finally he opened a drawer and found it empty. He opened the rest of the drawers and they were empty too. So he went back and looked at every single body again. He pulled them all the way out and turned down the sheets, looking for a slender frame and blond hair. 

But not a corpse was out of place. They all had legitimate histories tied around their ankles. And then Light found himself back with Takada. 

He went to check the records of who had been brought in that day and then flipped back a week’s worth of pages just to be sure.

Mello was gone.  


Mello had never even been brought in.

Mello was gone and Light could hear chains clattering against the floor, he could hear bells ringing from the back of the refrigerated drawers. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Psyche! He not ded.  
I could never kill Mello.  
Is my excuse for him surviving legit/medically probable? Not a clue. But hey, what do Marvel and anime have in common? Impossible character resurrections. So if they can do it, I can too. Because this slow burn is getting ridiculously slow and I need these bois to get together in some official capacity instead of lingering in the rival-friend-something-more limbo.  
Fair warning, I've run out of pre-written material. I'll try to catch up by next week but... I write in high intensity bursts over a single night and then take lengthy breaks, so no guarantees.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt compelled to add the crack tag after this mess.  
Hey so y’all know I love Light, but… this particular fic is not kind to him. Fair warning. :)

January 28th at last.

Two teams stared at each other across the concrete expanse of the abandoned Yellow Box, waiting. They had been waiting thirty minutes just in case. You could never predict when Kira might strike. 

When thirty minutes were up the leader of the SPK removed his mask. His mouth broke into the creepiest little grin the Japanese Task Force had ever seen. It sent shivers down most of their spines. (The SPK members plus Moji on the other hand, had long since grown immune to that grin.)

“Now that I have revealed myself, it would only be polite to introduce my accomplice. Gevanni, if you would?” The agent stepped forward and took a laptop out of his briefcase. He opened it and typed in a few commands before he set it down beside Near. “Mello is very sorry he couldn’t be with us today, but he wanted the opportunity to send his regards.” A white M flashed onto the blackened screen, and a voice—tinny over the speakers but familiar even through the voice distortion said,

“What’s up bitches? Let me tell you what’s up: I lived.” Light’s eyes narrowed but other than that, his expression gave nothing away. Aizawa and Matsuda looked equal parts relieved and exasperated. Ide was the only one shocked by this turn of events. 

Near grimaced and said, “Now that Mello’s regards have been given, I might have to remove him from this conversation,” as he slowly closed the laptop lid.

“NONONO NOPE GODDAMNIT NEAR DON’T YOU DARE—”

“Does Mello promise to behave?” the detective asked with a stern glare at the laptop camera. There was irritable grumbling from the speakers, but Mello agreed. 

“So you _were _working together,” Light observed, an odd smirk gracing his face. 

“Two heads are better than one, even if one of those heads contains a brain more suited to executing someone else’s plan than formulating their own.”

“Hey, fuck you, you little git!” To be fair, the insult was neither called for nor entirely accurate but Near couldn’t resist. 

“Wouldn’t you agree, Light?” the detective asked, and he glanced at the red warehouse door which was open just a crack. Somehow, his smile got even creepier. “He is here.”

“Who is?” Matsuda asked.

“X-Kira. He has come to write all of our names.” A lot of things happened in the next forty seconds. 

The entire Japanese task force, except Light, panicked. Matsuda drew his gun. He moved with Ide towards the door. Rester and Gevanni rushed to intervene, and Near just barely managed to talk them all down from hauling X-Kira inside before he finished his work. Mello tried to help, in his own way. While Near didn’t disagree with his insults towards the Japanese taskforce’s intelligence, they weren’t very diplomatic.

All the while rapturous, ritualistic muttering came from the other side of the door, “Delete delete delete delete delete delete delete—” 

“_No one will die!_” Near reassured them for the third time when he was cut off by X-Kira’s final cries: 

“DELETE, DELETE, **DELETE!!!”** There was a poignant silence as everyone pondered if their death sentence had just been written. Even the SPK members’ faith began to waver.

“Christ,” Mello remarked, disgust evident even through the voice distortion. “Do you reckon that’s what he sounds like when he cums?”

“MELLO!!!” 

“Come on, we were all thinking it. Oh great Kira—” he mocked, high and simpering. “Would thy in your great mercy permit me to suckle on your pinkie toe? Perhaps if I’ve served you well you might step on my face?” Although the laptop’s camcorder was kind of shit and the grainy half-darkness of the warehouse wasn’t helping, Mello could see Light’s expression leaking out from the cracks in his mask and it was glorious. Some mix of disgust, embarrassment, and the tiniest bit of questioning whether he was actually turned on by this and all the more horrified to find himself uncertain of the answer. 

The mixed review only encouraged Mello to keep going. “But no—I’m not worthy, I am but a lowly worm. A worthless worm. Delete delete deleeee—AYE DON’T YOU DARE—” Near shut the laptop’s lid. He looked like he was in pain and wanted to find a fluffy sleeping bag, zip himself up, and never see the light of day again. 

“Commander Rester, remind me that I should not under any circumstances allow Mello to participate in this kind of thing in the future.”

“Noted Near.” The detective took a breath, collecting himself, and then forged on with his plan.

“Teru Mikami. You may come in if you’d like.” He saw the sliver of the man visible through the crack in the door hesitate. “There shouldn’t be anything for you to fear if you’ve written our names. Come on in.” 

“Teru Mikami?” a now-collected Light asked _as if he didn’t already know_. “That’s right. Don’t hide. Come inside.” 

The voice behind the door crooned, “_God!” _And then the red door clamored open to reveal a man possessed, clutching a notebook to his chest. Near’s mouth ticked down at the sight of him. He resisted the urge to rub his wrist.

“How many seconds has it been since you wrote the first name?” Light asked. The puppet checked his watch with ragged dark hair and a craned neck and wide eyes that blinked only once, eerily familiar if still a mockery. 

“Thirty,” he said. Near shifted his weight to the balls of his feet as he crouched, ready to wait another small eternity. 

Halle handed him the laptop. 

It took him approximately 0.33 seconds to reconsider. He opened it. 

Mello was mercifully silent as they waited out the final nine seconds.

“Near,” Light said, “I win!”

And then their time was up.

“…We’re not dead,” Matsuda observed more than twenty seconds later.

The _Oh Fuck _expression on both Kira's faces at that moment was extraordinary to witness. 

“I’ve been telling you nobody would die,” Near said, and they could all tell what he meant was _I told you so. _Mello made a derisive noise from the laptop. The smug little git.

After that, it was a simple enough matter to arrest Mikami and disarm him. Then Near was holding a Death Note. He scanned the most recent page and smirked. 

“Mello, have a look at this,” he said, holding the notebook up to the laptop camera. Before long Mello was laughing. 

“A bit of a desperate play. Were you all out of ideas, Kira?” 

Near flipped the notebook so the Japanese task force could see the page too. “Mikami wrote out specific instructions for my death. I was to write _Mihael Kheel_ in this notebook while picturing the face of the man who goes by Mello before dying of a heart attack. Kira was trying to use me to kill you,” he said, amused. 

“He really was taking a gamble, wasn’t he? How could he be certain if you’d seen my face?” Across the room, Light’s eye was twitching and he was starting to turn an interesting shade of red because _he had given Mikami no such instructions. _What good was a puppet that disobeyed its master? Absolutely worthless. Clearly, Light’s one mistake was trusting him, trusting him with the Death Note and trusting him with the information that drove him to make such reckless decisions. “Not that he could have won even if it had worked.” With those words, the screen split in two and another identical M was shown next to the first insignia. Light’s face crumbled. 

“No,” he said. “Not another one.” The second M spoke, and the first thing he did was imitate the theme of an opened treasure chest in the Legend of Zelda.

“DAH DAH DAH DAAA!!!”

“Mellopromised he would behave. M2 was supposed to watch over his shoulder.”

“What, you expect me to exclude Matty from this?” Near’s eyelid twitched. 

“Mello’s right,” Matt said, “Even if Kira had succeeded in killing you both, I would have avenged you boo.”

“Which one of us is boo?” Mello asked.

“You’re both boo. Near is sweetheart, pygmy-puff, or sugar and you’re not anything other than the sexiest guy I know because if I called you any stupid nicknames, you’d murder me slowly in a very un-sexy way.”

“Smart man.” Rester’s eyebrows were at about the same level as the rafters. Agent Halle and Gevanni were fighting very hard not to laugh. Moji was unsuccessfully holding back a smile. Everyone else on the Japanese task force looked beyond confused, Mikami even more so. Kira was too busy having a crisis to care.

Near shut the laptop and hurled it across the warehouse with such force it shattered on impact. 

“Light Yagami, your name is the only one not written in this notebook! You are Kira!” he shrieked, his voice cracking at the most inopportune time. He buried his rapidly pinkening face in his knees. 

“How many more crazy successors are there?” Light asked in a dread whisper. Near peeked out from behind his knees, creepy smirk slowly making its encore.

“L has more successors than there are letters in the alphabet.”

Matt and Mello called Halle incessantly until she picked up. She agreed to let them listen to the events transpiring in the warehouse but kept them on mute. Matt munched popcorn as they witnessed Kira fall apart. 

When Near and the rest of the SPK finally made it back to their hotel, night had just finished ink blotting its way across the Tokyo sky. All the suits getting off overtime came out to play under the neon, finally heading home as less-savory evening residents took over the streets. Some of the suits shunned home to mingle among them. 

Near considered how, since Kira was gone, this neighborhood might not be safe to walk through after dark in a year, or in five. Luckily Near wasn’t one for walking or leaving the safety of a locked room or a locked car. Today had been a necessary exception. 

Rester parked in the alley by the hotel’s dumpsters while Halle and Gevanni took the decoy around front. Near gripped Rester’s sleeve and let the agent half-drag him through the back entrance and into the maintenance elevator. He swayed on his feet and resisted the urge to drop into a crouching position as Rester double-checked that the cameras were on a feedback loop and the hallway was clear. He led them through the staff entrance hidden behind a bit of avante garde wallpaper and down the corridor to their suite. 

As soon as he was on carpet Near dropped and log-rolled to the center of the room, where he lay on his back staring at the ceiling. There. That was enough standing for one day. 

Halle and Gevanni entered a few minutes later. They began to pack up, transferring files to flash drives and wiping the desktops clean, unplugging wires, and locating stray folders. Near gave idle directions about what should go where while he played with a toy car. He would rather be making a giant tower of Legos to occupy his hands as he reflected on the evening, trying to predict the future. But that would make a mess and they wouldn’t be staying much longer. 

As efficient as they were, they’d hardly been back a minute before the door to the adjacent suite burst open and Matt ran in. He barely gave Near the chance to speak before he picked up the smaller boy and the toy car, carried them back across the room, and shut the door with a kick. Halle, Gevanni, and Rester looked at each other, shrugged, and carried on with their tasks. 

“Traitors!” Near yelled from the other room, and the SPK smiled. This was perhaps the one time they didn’t have to worry that their boss had been kidnapped. 

Matt dumped Near on the bed, which was wide enough he could do that without jostling Mello who was still flat on his stomach and wrapped in bandages. The blond made a valiant effort to drag Near over and noogie him into submission but winced and gave up after lifting his arm two inches. 

Matt threw his arms in the air and started cheering. “WE FUCKING DID IT!” 

“Not bad, pipsqueak,” Mello grumbled into the pillows. 

“Not bad? _Not bad?_ I did all the work while Mello lay here like a lazy bum!” 

“And the work wasn’t half bad.” 

“I defeated Kira!” 

“You said so yourself, you couldn’t have done it on your own.” 

“Mello would have bled out in a field if I didn’t intervene, I think he’s taking too much credit.” 

“Guys, don’t fight,” Matt said as he finished up his fifth victory lap of the room and bounced onto the bed. “We won!” Near frowned. 

“Barely. I don’t think Matt and Mello could have ruined that confrontation more if they tried.” Mello grinned and deadpanned,

“Couldn’t help it, winning is a turn-on.” 

“That’s not my kink but I still take pride in our chaotic energy,” Matt said.

“Also, HOW DARE you compare me to Mikami!” Near backed out of reach of Mello’s clawing fingernails, unimpressed by such an underwhelming threat of violence.

“My apologies,” he amended. “Mello does not have a brain more suited to executing someone else’s plan than formulating his own. Mello is perfectly capable of formulating plans.” 

“Damn right I am!”

“His plans simply suck.” Near sat back and smirked as Mello could do nothing but growl into the pillow with frustration. 

“I kinda gotta side with Near on this one Mells.”

“_Matt!” _The redhead counted on his fingers as he listed,

“You decided to kick it with the mafia, got yourself blown up, and then narrowly escaped getting yourself killed a second time. This isn’t a reassuring pattern.” Mello grumbled and groused and told them both to fuck off before burying his face in the duvet. Near wondered if Matt also found it cute when Mello tried to pretend like he didn’t know they were right. 

He heard cursing as someone dropped something heavy in the adjacent room, hopefully not a computer, and shook the thought away. He dismissed the simple happiness he felt in this moment like shutting the lid on a box and counted the reasons he was right. He took a breath and announced,

“You are both welcome to this hotel room for however long Mello requires it to recover from his injury. The SPK and I will depart for America in the morning.” There were several long beats of silence and Near started wondering when the most opportune moment for him to tactically retreat to the other room would be.

“Wait.” Mello turned his neck as much as he could and glared at Near out the corner of his eye. “What the fuck?! You’re _leaving?_”

“If I am to become L I cannot afford the distraction you two pose,” Near said level-headedly and without remorse. This was an inevitability. If he was to succeed, Near had to be more rational and quick-witted than ever. He was aware that by taking up the mantle of L he would be inheriting not only the great detective’s legacy but his enemies as well. 

However, it was also inevitable that Mello wouldn’t see it that way. He had always heeded his emotions before reason.

“What the FUCK?! What about that bullshit speech you made about how together we can surpass L?!”

“Mello has made it clear on multiple occasions that he does not wish to work with me.” 

“Don’t you fucking dare decide what I do or don’t wish you little—!” Matt placed a hand on Mello’s shoulder, a warning in two parts. First, not to get too worked up or he’d hurt himself again. And second, to _shut up _before he said something he’d regret. 

“What Mello’s trying to say is—” 

“And Matt has made it even more clear that he wishes to stay with Mello,” Near interrupted. There was his opportune moment. As Matt struggled with how to respond Near slipped off the bed and into the hall, offering only a parting, “Goodbye.” Then he stepped into the adjacent suite, Mello’s shouting, cursing and insults not a moment behind the shut door. The members of the SPK, all standing in various parts of a room now stripped to its bare necessities, stared at him. 

“…Did you have a fight?” Agent Halle asked. Near shook his head and answered,

“No. This arrangement is what’s best for everyone.” After all, L could not afford to have such attachments. “Keep packing,” he ordered, and the agents complied with no further questions.

Fifteen minutes later Matt had calmed Mello down enough to trust that he wouldn’t try to crawl out of bed and throttle “that arrogant little two-faced twit” if he left him alone. But when he stepped into the other suite, Near and his agents had already departed.

Near did not like airports. Airports involved standing and walking great distances. Airports involved bustling crowds of highly stressed humans who were consequentially rude and impatient. Airports involved long lines to satisfy inefficient security checks and officers who would openly gape at him in disbelief when they looked at his passport. Yes, he _was _in fact nineteen years old and he was also flying a model airplane and making whoosh whoosh noises. Could he go to the gate now?

Well, that was his experience with airports in England and America. Regardless, this trip to the airport turned out to be especially reprehensible. Not only did his decision to throw away L’s fortune to escape Kira’s mob of supporters mean going on a private jet was no longer an option, but trouble began before they could even check their luggage. 

“I’m sorry Sir, but your ticket isn’t in our system.” Rester had spent the last five minutes trying to persuade the flight attendant that of course their ticket was in the system, he had the receipt right here. The flight attendant re-iterated that they weren’t showing up. Rester desperately looked through his phone, unable to find the email that should prove her wrong. Halle began to verbally berate the poor, harried attendants, threatening to call the head of their company herself, she swore she could get the number in less than five minutes. 

“I knew we shouldn’t have flown Spirit,” Gevanni muttered. Near gave him a funny look.

“Agent Gevanni, we are not flying Spirit.” Lost fortune aside, they were not quite desperate enough to fly Spirit. Gevanni shook his head and muttered about how the curse of Spirit Airlines would follow him for the rest of his life, no matter where he flew. Once. It had only been once. Why won’t it leave him be?

Near was just beginning to get annoyed enough that he was about to tell Halle to stop hassling the poor attendants who had no better idea what was going on than they did when he received a call. He didn’t even have to look at the number before everything fell into place. 

“Hey there pygmy puff,” the voice on the other end of the line teased. “How’s that flight working out for you?”

“What has Matt done?” Near asked, using all his powers of carefully controlled apathy to erase the irritation in his voice. 

“Well, I can’t _tell you _if I’ve done anything Near, that would be a confession.” Near closed his eyes. One of his hands drifted up to play with his hair. He listened to the attendant’s frantic apologies, Halle’s shouting, Rester’s muttering—“just a moment, I’ve got it, I swear it was right here—” and Gevanni cursing Spirit Airlines. He tugged at a strand hard enough to hurt.

“I am going to politely ask that Matt fix whatever ‘hacking wizardry,’ he has done to the airline’s system within the next five minutes.” 

“You know Mello’s super pissed, right?” Matt said, completely ignoring his polite request. 

“That is to be expected. Mello is always mad at me for one reason or another.”

“Did you ever stop to think for a moment about how orphans _might _have some issues when it comes to abandonment?” 

“I fail to see how Mello’s abandonment issues are my problem. Furthermore, did Matt ever stop to think for a moment about how _I _might be ‘super pissed’ because of a certain set of missing data!” Near snapped. Matt paused. 

“What’s going on over there?” 

“What’s going on? What’s going on is everyone has descended into stressed, rude dysfunctionality and incompetence while I sit here, useless, when there are countless other things I could be doing! Our flight takes off in two hours but all the time in the world doesn’t matter when _our tickets have ceased to exist!_” 

“_Near_.” The detective experienced a moment of utter detestation towards his own brain because, by simply saying his name in that tone, Matt could decrease his stress levels by about forty percent. When had he allowed that pattern to develop, and how quickly could he un-learn it? “I’m sorry. It was just a stupid prank to get your attention. Can we talk? I promise after we talk I can—actually no, that’s basically blackmail. I’m fixing it right now. You can have your tickets back and you don’t have to talk to me. But I would appreciate it if you did.” Near sighed and said, 

“Let me go someplace quieter.” He interrupted Gevanni’s nonsensical muttering by grabbing him by the sleeve and dragging him off to the nearest empty seating area. He plopped himself down in the nook between two benches and allowed the SPK member to monitor him however he saw fit.

“Better?” Matt asked.

“Marginally.” The redhead sighed and tried to get the conversation back on track.

“It was never that he didn’t want to work with you Near,” he said, soft and sincere. “Mello won’t admit it, but he puts a lot more faith in irrational things than you do, and that doll… Well, it was kind of the terror of our childhoods.”

“Of course. I understand.” Near knew better than anyone what it’s like to be wary of Isaac. He would think Mello more stupid than irrational if he hadn’t been scared. 

“But now that it’s gone… You know it’s gone for good, right Near? And it’s all thanks to Kira, believe it or not. Isaac is nothing but ashes now.”

“…I know. I somehow knew before you told me. Which isn’t rational.” He had been more consumed by the fear of losing Mello at the time but somehow, he’d felt some oppressive presence lift and knew in an instant his doll was no more. He’d been so caught up in the next step, stabilizing Mello, defeating Kira, stepping up to become L, that he hadn’t stopped to process what that meant for him until now. 

“Matt… do you think… now that it’s gone…?”

“Not if you don’t get your skinny little ass over here and apologize to him. Who the hell said that L has to be alone, huh? Where did you get that idea from?” 

“I…I had decided that this was what was best for everyone.”

“Near. I want you to stop thinking for a second. Because I love you dearly but sometimes your insistence that you can separate your thoughts from your emotions and completely ignore them is pretty irritating.” Near had to force himself to actively listen to what came next because he found himself _burning_ over the casual confession. Gevanni looked marginally concerned at the shade of red he was turning. Near buried his face in his knees. _Matt loved him dearly. _He held the phone away from his ear for a moment to make a small shrieking noise into his sleeve_. _“Your emotions are always going to influence how you think. No matter how much you try to be impartial, humans just aren’t built that way. So I want you to stop and think about what you want for yourself instead of what you think is best for everyone before you decide to get on that plane. Because I don’t want you to do something you might regret years from now when it’s too late to fix things.” 

Near thought about what was waiting for him in America. A life as L. Long days of analysis and punting around the problems of the world, long weeks of staring at the same screens, the same walls, the same repetitive patterns. Years of self-induced isolation he didn’t allow anyone but his team to breach. 

It would become easy, stale, boring after a certain point. Lonely after that. The previous L must have had a true passion for such work to withstand it. Could Near cultivate that passion?

He found himself momentarily stunned. Could he? Was he the best candidate for this position after all? Had he ever _yearned _to become L in the same way Mello had? Had he ever wanted anything else?

He was stunned again to find that he had. Near wanted that feeling he got with Matt and Mello. He wanted to be a person instead of a thinking machine. He wanted to feel safe and valued. He wanted to cuddle in bed with them. He wanted to solve cases with them. He wanted to tease Mello and fluster Matt. He wanted to rope them into building dice towers. He wanted Matt to rope them into video games. He wanted to see the look on Mello’s face if Near gave him chocolate. Or stole it.

If Mello was willing to work with him, then Near owed it to Mello to let him be a part of L’s legacy. And if Matt cared half as much as he was implying then Near owed it to Matt to fix this mess. 

“…I’ve made a mistake, haven’t I?” he asked.

“Almost,” Matt said. “But we’re still here in this hotel room, waiting for you. Mello’s run the poor room service ragged. I think he’s almost eaten them out of their chocolate cake.” Near nodded, counted every new reason he was right, and made a decision.

“I’ll be back in an hour or less.” Matt sighed with relief.

“Thank you Near. See you soon?” Near made a noise of assent and hung up. Gevanni gave him an inquiring look, _Everything good? _Near nodded and this seemed to be enough to reassure him. Or perhaps he was calmer now that he wouldn’t have to face the curse of Spirit Airlines.

When Near approached the check-in desk, Rester turned to him and said,

“There must have been a glitch in the system, but we managed to fix it. They just found our tickets!”

“Cancel them. We are going back to the hotel.” The poor agent looked ready to cry. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back babyyyyyyyyyyyy!  
Sorry for the uh... almost year-long hiatus. It happens sometimes. I thought I had an ending. Then this story almost doubled in length and completely shifted in tone so I had to figure out how it really ends. These boys just. Could not get their shit together. But I've almost got it now! And someone recently commented asking for more so I figured I might as well post what I do have!  
My goal is to finish this completely by Halloween 2020! Stay safe, stay spooky, and remember to stay the fuck away from creepy dolls!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Didn't post this by Halloween. My computer died, finals happened, etc. But I have more free time now.   
I thought I should mention that inspiration for this fic came from Episode 15 of the podcast Lore, Unboxed. I must have listened to it… god, two years ago?   
And now this is finally finished.

By the time Near stood outside the hotel room door he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with himself. 

The door was a battered eggshell white. The handle was smudged. And the only thought in Near’s head was what he could possibly say once he was on the other side. 

He had ordered the SPK agents to start hauling their equipment back into the new room they’d checked into down the hall, but Halle decided to approach when he was still standing in front of the door after her second elevator trip up and down. 

She stood beside him for several silent seconds. Then she reached into her briefcase and handed him a chocolate bar. She gave him a gentle nudge towards the door before she walked back down the hallway. 

Near tried to force all his nerves out with his breath, raised his hand, and knocked. Near barely had time to register the door was opening before he was lifted onto his toes with the force of a hug.

“Took you long enough,” Matt said as he ushered the detective inside. “I see you brought a bribe too. Smart.” 

“How mad is he?” Near asked. His mouth was suddenly very dry.

“Well… Just lead with an apology and give him time if he needs to cool off and everything will be fine!” Matt grabbed his hand and led him towards the bedroom. Near took every step with reluctance but he didn’t actually freeze up until he was in Mello’s line of sight. 

The blond still lay prone on the bed just as he had last evening, but the bedsheets were in complete disarray. Several pillows were on the other side of the room. The generic abstract paintings on the wall were crooked. Plates upon plates of chocolate cake remnants were stacked on the bedside table. 

Near had only left them alone for a few hours and they’d already managed to trash the place. 

A single piercing blue eye narrowed at him from a gap in a curtain of hair. Near probably would have stood there pinned in place forever if Matt didn’t pull him forward. 

Near hesitated at the side of the bed. He set the chocolate bar down within Mello’s reach and knelt on the mattress with a bowed head like he was leaving an offering at an altar. He didn’t look up until he heard the wrapper crinkle. Mello tore into the bar viciously. He let the chocolate melt in his mouth as he stared at the boy before him, icy, imperious, and expectant. 

“…I’m sorry.” 

“Hmm. Didn’t quite catch that, come again?” Normally, having someone pretend not to hear him for the sake of making Near repeat himself would be grounds for some irritation but this was something that needed to be said louder. 

“I am sorry for threatening to leave without stopping to consider what you want. I was under some misguided notion that to be L is to be without meaningful attachments. But I… I care for you both very much. I tried to forget exactly how much because you—” _left. You left me. _

But that chunk of built-up resentment that clogs his throat will have to be handled later. “—weren’t around. And I thought it would be best if things went back to the way they were. But now I realize that I don’t want to cut you or Matt out of my life. So if that’s something I have to do to become L, then… I won’t.” He’d thought that this statement would at least get some sort of reaction but Mello’s expression was still unreadable. He takes another slow bite of the chocolate bar. Near resisted the urge to run out of the room and hide. Matt’s warm and reassuring hand on his shoulder was the only thing that convinced him to keep going.

“…I missed you. I missed Matt. And even if you don’t want to work together with me to be L, I hope you will allow me to stay in contact with you both.” The sheets were a very interesting shade of white. Very interesting. How has Near never noticed how interesting hotel bedsheets are before now? If he looked hard enough he could probably even count the threads in them. Counting sounded like a good idea. One, two… 

Mello’s voice interrupted his attempt to strain his eyes into short-sightedness. “That was a surprisingly decent apology.” The blond threw the last bit of chocolate into his mouth, crumpled up the chocolate bar, and tossed it over his shoulder. “I’m still mad at you though. Oh, don’t look like that I’m accepting your dumb offer!”

“…What?”

“You and me, acting as L. But I’m a petty bitch so I’m still mad. Get me about ten more of these bars and I’ll call it even.”

Near frowned and said, “This is extortion.”

“Tough shit,” Mello replied with a grin. After a few moments Near relented with a nod and a smile. Mello could have all the chocolate bars he wanted—and all the dental work he’d eventually need—if he agreed to stay by Near’s side. 

It was still only mid-morning and none of the three knew exactly what to do with themselves. They attempted to have a relaxing day. Mello read a book, which was one of the only things he could do given he resembled a beached whale on the bed. Matt went down internet rabbit holes. Near raided the hotel room closet and found the most disappointing jigsaw puzzle he’d ever had the misfortune to solve. Then he dragged a board game over to the bed and they all played that. Mello and Near pestered Matt into getting the ice to reduce Mello’s swelling because Mello couldn’t move and Near didn’t want to. 

They all got bored before noon. Matt in particular was losing his mind. He didn’t do well with boredom. Out of desperation Mello turned on the TV and started to flip through channels until he paused on a news story that grabbed his attention.

“Prolific mass murderer or God? The answer depends on who you ask, but now for the first time, we’re getting insight into who Kira really is! 

“Minutes ago, the NPA issued a statement regarding the identity and death of the man they believe to be Kira. Last evening, four officers attempted to arrest the mysterious serial killer. Kira resisted the arrest by threatening them, along with four other bystanders, and made his escape. He was discovered in the nearby area dead of a heart attack early this morning. It is now alleged that the killer was none other than a member of the very task force assigned to apprehend Kira, prodigious young son of the late Deputy Director, Detective Light Yagami. 

“The Director of the NPA has refused to comment. 

“On a related note, several anonymous tips within the NPA have admitted that the Kira task force had assistance from an outside consultant in uncovering Yagami’s crimes. This has led to widespread speculation on the internet about who the world-renowned detective L really is, what his motivations are, what his role was in this case, and what he will do next.”

They all share a glance. Matt groans.

“Oh my _god _are you both such workaholics that you can’t take _one day off!?_”

“Says the one complaining that he’s about to die of boredom,” Mello retorted.

“I’ve already played every video game I’ve got right now at least three times, what else am I supposed to do when we’re not tracking down criminals or doing crimes!?”

“Something productive, now let me sit up, I’m sick of lying around!” the blond snapped.

There was a knock on the hotel room door. Near left the others to their quarrel and, after a cautious look through the peephole, opened it. Agent Rester held out his cell phone.

“Near? There’s a woman named Inez asking to speak with you.” Near nodded in thanks and took the phone.

“Hello Ms. Inez. There are some new developments regarding your management of Wammy’s House and my operations as L that you should be aware of.” 

One week later.

To the ordinary passerby’s eyes, two young men and a small girl sat on a bench in a busy park on a chilly day when the clouds threatened snow. One wore an old sweatshirt with a game logo on it and seemed mostly preoccupied with his phone. The other was swathed in a baggy black hoodie and nibbled at a crepe with too much chocolate sauce. The girl was dressed head to toe in winter lolita fashion. 

After yet another person paused their walk to compliment her outfit and ask if they could take a picture she glared at the boy on his phone and said, “I agreed to this disguise to conceal my identity. Not to have random strangers create a virtual record of my face.” Matt looked up from his mobile game with a shit-eating grin.

“Isn’t it perfect though? If someone was looking for L no one would expect you to be drawing _more _attention to yourself, much less suspect a twelve-year-old in cosplay.” 

“_I am nineteen_.” 

“We know that twerp, but right now you look like a twelve-year-old in cosplay,” Mello said, reaching up to absentmindedly scratch at the layer of latex concealing his scar until Matt slapped his hand away. Near sighed and crossed his arms, strangling his new Build-A-Bear. He didn’t particularly mind the dress. It was comfortable enough, like an oversized nightshirt, and the cardigan and hat he wore kept him nice and warm. He was not a fan of the woolen tights and shoes but that was because he wasn’t a fan of anything covering his feet ever. 

He just wished people would s_top staring._

It was one week after Kira’s world started to crumble and he wouldn’t even be outside if Matt hadn’t insisted on dragging them out to see at least _some_ of Tokyo before they set up headquarters in America. Mello was stir-crazy and healed enough to take his side. While _they_ got dressed to blend in with ordinary people, Matt insisted Near take up the time-honored tradition of L wearing something so ridiculous no one could recognize him. 

They had a day that was only strange in how ordinary it was. They went sightseeing. They went ice skating. Mello skated circles around them and was very smug. Near got his Build-A-Bear. Matt geeked out over the shiny machines showcased in windows of cutting-edge tech shops and made several impulse-buys against Mello’s better judgment. And now they’d ended up here, unwilling to admit they’d gotten lost in this park.

Near watched as the closest streetlight flickered on just as Mello finished his crepe. With a barely-there smile, he said, “Today was fun.”

“Can confirm, today was better than getting blown up or stabbed,” Mello agreed in between licking his fingers clean.

“We should come back sometime!” Matt said. “There’s still a bunch of stuff I need to see.”

“You and your _nerd stuff_.”

“If we ever have a case where we need someone to do fieldwork in Tokyo, Matt can be the first one on the scene.”

“Nah, fieldwork is Mell’s thing, I’m not getting out from behind a computer unless it’s a proper vacation. Besides, I’d rather stick with you dorks.” 

“Ugh, stop, you’re gonna make me sick,” Mello groaned. Matt laughed and reached up like he was about to pull his goggles down over his eyes, only to realize he left the distinctive accessory back at the hotel room. Near watched his ears, nose, and cheeks getting redder and speculated that it might be from something other than the cold.

“I mean that though… I mean…” Matt trailed off, visibly struggling for the right words to say. He restarted and stopped his sentence so many times Mello and Near exchanged a look of mild concern, mutually wondering if he might be suffering a stroke. Finally, he blurted out, “Fuck it, I like both of your dumb asses and I think we should all date!” 

Mello blinked. 

Near blinked. 

Mello had been able to sense that something was bothering Matt ever since he and Near made up after their fight, but he had _no idea _it was something like this.

Near had expected Matt to bring this up sooner or later, but he hadn’t anticipated him being so… _blunt _about it. 

But blunt was probably the best approach, considering Mello’s reaction. 

“What. What even—? Where the hell is this coming from?!” Now that he’d finally managed to spit his words out Matt didn’t look like he would take them back anytime soon.

“Come on Mells, we’ve talked about starting up a polyamorous clusterfuck of a relationship with Near before.”

“When!?! I WAS NOT HERE FOR THIS CONVERSATION!”

“It was one of those silent conversations we have in our minds with like a few nods.” That seemed about right to Near. He’d witnessed many moments where that sort of silent exchange occurred. 

“I... I fucking hate that I know what you’re talking about. But there must have been a severe translation error. I mean—” Mello stole a glance at the smaller boy beside him. “I... If Near doesn’t mind. Then I. Wouldn’t.” He turned back to Matt, almost sheepishly. “And I know we managed to sort some shit out. I mean… I guess we’re boyfriends?” The redhead looked positively indignant. 

“_You guess we’re boyfriends?!”_

“Well I don’t know, are we?!” 

Near rested his chin on top of his bear’s head with an amused little smirk and said, “This does not look like Mello and Matt have sorted their shit out.”

“You kissed me once and drove off into the sunset!” Matt said with an accusatory finger-jab. “If you wanna be my boyfriend ask me out on a proper date, I’m not that easy!”

“I was under the impression that today was Matt’s idea of a proper date,” Near said.

“Well yeah, but it was like a secret date because none of us are actually dating.” Well, that sounded like complete bullshit but Near kept his silent resolution to count today as their first date to himself. 

“FINE!” Mello yelled. “Matt do you wanna be my damn boyfriend!?”

“Yes Mello, obviously I do!”

“Alright, there, we’ll go on a stupid date sometime, are you happy now?” The blond turned to the boy in the ridiculous disguise next to him and asked, with absolutely no reduction from his prior volume, “Near do you want in on this?”

“Oh my God Mell you SUCK.”

“Shut UP Matt!” While the occasional passerby had previously stopped to ask for photos, now two middle-aged women power-walked past trying and failing to give the impression that they couldn’t hear or understand their conversation.

“Hm…” Near tilted his head as he thought about Mello’s question. The proposed arrangement did coincide nicely with his own goals and desires. 

It might be a bit of a disaster. Mello would still have a temper and Matt might disappear into personal projects for days on end and Near knew he still wasn’t the best at this whole emotional intelligencething. A three-way relationship seemed like it would require a certain aptitude in that. 

But then what if, despite all that, they managed to make it work?

“Let’s be partners in solving crime,” he declared.

“Partners in solving crime?” Matt’s smile was so blinding Near felt he should probably look away for the sake of his eyes. “I like that.”

“To clarify, more than a working relationship, right?” Mello asked. “Because I swear to god Near if you’re messing with me—” Near decided to make his intentions perfectly clear by leaning over, brushing Mello’s hair aside, and kissing him on the cheek. The blond’s reaction was fascinating to watch. His mouth worked open and closed uselessly for a few moments before he stammered out, 

“That’s not fair. That’s not fair damn it if we’re gonna do this then _I_am supposed to be the irresistible one, you’re not allowed to do that to me while looking like that!” 

“If Mello objects to me kissing him or looking like this then I don’t have to do either of those things in the future.” 

“No—fuck it that’s not what I meant!” Matt came to his rescue, in a roundabout way, by leaning over Mello and asking,

“Don’t I get a kiss too?” Near obliged. He aimed for Matt’s cheek, anticipated the redhead changing the angle to meet his lips at the last second, slipped his stuffed bear’s paw between them, and darted forward to peck his nose instead. Matt pouted at him. “Tease.” Mello pulled on the strings of his hoodie and hid. This was ridiculous. This was gross. He should not be soft for these idiots, who happened to be acting very adorable right in his personal space. He should shove them both away and shout at them or something. 

He can’t. He literally cannot. What the hell happened to him? He used to be tough. He used to be a whole mob boss who wouldn’t hesitate to kill whoever got in his way. This was absolute bullshit.

Near let out a breath that could hold the smallest trace of a laugh, stood up and offered them both a hand. “Partners in solving crime?” he asked.

“Hell yeah!” Matt cheered. Mello could only take their hands and hold them tight. 

Five years later.

America was a lot of things, not all of them good, but its inclination towards everything _big _was certainly useful. It was all too easy to go unnoticed in the middle of a sprawling metropolis with millions of people, inside one of several towering skyscrapers. Accordingly, L’s primary headquarters were located on the forty-third floor of one such building. 

L was once a person. Now, L could be described as a network. A vast web that stretched out across criminal contacts to government agents, from armchair detective sleuths tucked away in tiny corners of the internet who would never know exactly who helped them solve their case to renowned alumni from an orphanage for genius children. 

The few who unearthed any genuine morsels of information as they dug their teeth into the mystery of L frequently disagreed about what lay at the center of this network. Most agreed that it was a person. Putting aside the entire issue of what happened to that person during the Kira case—whether L truly died or Kira stole his identity or L faked his death or a new L defeated Kira—it was even more impossible to agree upon L’s nature as an individual. 

Some theorized that L decided to adapt to modern times. He became a hacker of incredible skill. He had powerful computers that could process all the data mined from all the tech companies and social media platforms and government archives in the world, and sort them into neat little threads he tugged at to unravel every step of a crime. That even the darkest corners of the world wide web were known to him, as were all the best memes. 

Others argued that L was instead a master of disguise and a brilliant actor. That he hid in plain sight, capable of taking on any identity. He could go anywhere and fool everyone. He was charismatic and without scruples and ruthless in his pursuit of evidence. The perfect secret agent. After all, not even L could solve so many cases if he never stepped outside, right?

Many vehemently disagreed with those theories. The largest faction believed that, original or newly risen, this L operated the same way he did before the Kira case: He handpicked cases of interest and solved them, no matter their difficulty. He stayed on the other side of a screen and outlined each series of events with an eerie, distorted voice. And the only face of L was Watari.

There was another thing worth consideration: The identity of Watari. Especially since recently, Watari was more likely to appear as a man or a woman in a black suit than a mysterious figure in a trench coat.

All the people across the world who devoted so much time and energy to the mysterious detective, the greatest mystery of all, would have given anything to get even a glimpse of the truth. Unfortunately, even if they could discover the location of L’s headquarters every window on the forty-third floor of that skyscraper was tinted black.

On the other side of the glass, L crouched on the floor of a darkened room stacking dice and staring at screens. His wavy white hair brushed his shoulders. He idly twisted a strand of it around his finger. He considered how to approach the case before him. He was ninety-seven percent sure he’d figured everything out, and if he spent any more time on it he could get that figure up to a hundred. 

But he knew from experience that local law enforcement didn’t appreciate it when you dumped their entire case into their laps all neat and tidy. Nearly sixty people were dead and if the FBI wasn’t currently mired with inefficient management and bogged down by onerous politics, they would have already intervened. They’d get around to it soon. And then they’d wait for another dozen deaths before calling him. 

In the interest of saving time L contacted Watari, told him to send an anonymous text directly to the lead Detective’s phone with a tip that would set her down the right path, and put the case aside to be monitored as his lead zipped down the network he’s built up. He opened a new file but got sidetracked when an incoming video call popped up on the largest monitor. 

Near clicked accept, and Matt’s grin lit up the screen. Mello joined them moments later.

“Hey neeeeeeeeeeeerds,” Matt drawled as he spun around in his swivel chair. “What’s up?” 

“Not much,” Mello replied. “Just tailing this bastard on the way to the meeting he’s doing a shit job of keeping secret.” The car camera was at a terrible angle which made him look even stranger in short dark hair and sharp business attire. Mello was not himself without a stitch of leather or a spot of scarring. But he was currently infiltrating a company with workplace practices so unscrupulous they were deadly, not to mention fraudulent, so he fit the part. Matt made a noise of sympathy.

“Miss you both. Wanted to see your cute faces.”

“Matt, I’m only a room away,” Near said, bemused as he started disassembling his dice-tower replica of their skyscraper. 

“Why would I get up and go a whole _room _away when you’re only a _click _away here?”

“Both of you better not be sitting on your ass all day,” Mello threatened. “Get up and walk. Eat something. Don’t make me sic Halle on you.” 

“I ate,” Near confirmed. “Matt had a hot pocket and a bag of spicy chips and then he refused to listen when I advised him to consider a more balanced diet.”

“You little _snitch_,” Matt hissed. Mello laughed and Near smirked and watched them get in a brief argument about how Matt’s “gamer lifestyle” was detrimental to his health. He’d almost finished taking down his dice structure when Matt changed the topic with unusual gravity. 

“Hey Mello, Near? There’s this case that caught my attention.” 

“Yeah?” They waited as Matt clicked through whatever windows were open on his screen with a small frown. 

“I don’t know if we should take it yet. But it might be good to keep on our radar. It’s… weird.” 

“What kind of weird?” Mello asked, guarded.

“Like… Not natural weird.” Mello immediately started cursing up a storm. Near stopped playing with his hair and stood up to divert his full attention to the monitors.

“Fucking damn it, you know I hate these kinds of cases! First the Death Note, then that homicidal mirror—” 

“Yeah I know Mels, but we can’t pretend these things don’t exist!”

“What are the details of the case?” Near asked. Matt took a breath and rattled off an excerpt from a news article:

“Real Life Chucky or Deadly Curse? 8 Florida Family Members Dead in Half a Year. 

“Little Robby Owens, age ten, recently became the last surviving member of her family after what some have dubbed the Owens Family Curse claimed the lives of all her living relatives. Just when things seemed to be looking up, her bad luck struck again. 

“Several sources close to the Owens family say the curse started when Robby’s Grandmother passed away. Things got a little stranger when her Great Aunt died of a stroke. Then they became downright bizarre when Robby’s cousins Anne and Kate were discovered dead, locked in the basement freezer. Initially, police thought the girls climbed inside while playing and ruled the deaths an accident, but when their parents were found murdered in their bed from multiple stab wounds a week later, they began to suspect foul play. 

“Robby’s parents Mary and Thomas Owens were next to fall prey to the curse. They also died in their bed; it went up in flames after a power surge caused their phone charger to spark.

“Without any surviving family, Robby was relocated to a private orphanage in Miami. Her case attracted a surge of attention from concerned locals, and there were several offers to adopt the unfortunate orphan. It is unclear whether those offers still stand now that the reason for her recent transfer to a psychiatric hospital, pushing another child down a flight of stairs, has become known. The other child is recovering from non-fatal injuries.

“When asked for a comment, the orphanage director explained the following: “When Robbie first came to us, I didn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary. I thought she was managing as well as she could, considering what she’d just been through. The only thing that struck me as odd was the way she would cling to that doll.” We asked the director if what she thought had motivated Robbie’s unusual bout of violent behavior. Was it grief? Anger? Lashing out at a bully?

“The director’s answer? “We asked. All she would say was, ‘Jeanie did it.’”

“See pictured below: Robbie and her favorite doll, Jean, arriving at the orphanage.”

The three detectives sat there for a heavy, quiet moment.

“Where the hell did you find that trash fire story?” Mello eventually asked. “A creepypasta fan forum?”

“I know I know, I thought it was a joke too!” Matt said. “But then I, uh… I got curious? So I snooped around some police reports, death certificates and medical files and… Everything’s there. The grandma, great-aunt, cousins, aunt and uncle and parents died. A kid from the same orphanage Robbie went to was admitted to a hospital for blunt-force trauma to his head and a broken leg. And then I looked for information on the doll, you know, just in case and there’s this report an orderly filed about how they tried taking the doll away at the hospital, but it disappeared… and reappeared in the kid’s room. 

“…Fuck this shit.”

“Look all I’m saying is that it’s possible Grandma had a creepy doll in her attic and it got passed on to a different family member every time someone died! Then it landed with this kid. So… Do we wanna investigate this?” Judging from his expression alone Mello probably never wanted to not look into something more in his life. But they both waited for Near’s response. 

“…Absolutely not.” Mello breathed a sigh of relief. “Do not investigate further. We are not taking this case.”

“But Near! This little girl’s life has been destroyed by this thing!”

“We are detectives Matt, not heroes. …If you are truly concerned, however, you may send a message advising the hospital staff to cremate the doll.” Matt tucked a cigarette in between his grinning teeth and said.

“I’ve got a better idea.” He flicked his lighter on. 

_“No,” _Mello hissed. “Don’t you dare.”

“Love you both see you later bye!!” And with that, Matt hung up.

“God fucking damn that impulsive sonofabitch! What the hell Matty? I can’t do this right now, I’ve gotta be at this meeting with my target in five minutes! Fuck! Do I drop this case and go after him?”

“No need,” Near said soothingly. “I will send Watari after him.”

“Gevani, Halle or Rester?” 

“All of them.” 

“Good. Christ. When did we become the freaking Ghost Busters?” Mello asked with a beleaguered sigh.

“After this, I am creating a very strict No-Investigating-Likely-Paranormal-Activity rule,” Near declared. “How quickly can you wrap up this case?”

“With or without casual murder?” He gave Mello a _look. _ “Not even a little bit of torture? This guy doesn’t need ALL his toenails.” His _look _extended into a withering blank stare. “Alright alright stop making that face, I get it, no undue violence. It’ll probably take me two to three days to finish up, after that I’ll meet up with Matt.”

“I will attempt to stall him from doing anything stupid until then.” They exchanged goodbyes and Mello hung up. Near gazed at his blank blue desktop wallpaper, deep in thought, before he came to a decision and opened one of the more heavily encrypted files in their system. It was a file for cases related to the inexplicable, impossible, and unnatural. Currently, only three sub-folders existed:

DEATH NOTE

MURDER MIRROR

ISAAC

Near stared at that final folder for a while. The mouse hovered over it. Then he shook his head, opened a new folder and labeled it: 

ROBBY OWENS//JEAN

_This had better be the last one_, he thought to himself even as a quiet voice in the back of his mind told him that it probably wouldn’t be. With that he shut down the monitors, gathered up a few toys and exited the room at a leisurely pace. No matter how much Matt loved his car it couldn’t outrun a plane. Near was ready to meet up with his partners and solve some crime. Or break a curse.

Whatever the case may be.


	8. BLOOPERS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I toned down a lot of the crack from chapters 6 and 7, but also liked some of those moments too much to get rid of them completely. So I thought I'd put those incorrect-quotes style snippets here.
> 
> Enjoy the nonsense.

1\. “Can we cuddle?” Mello asks. “I miss the cuddles.” If only Mello’s henchmen could see their fierce, feared Mafiesto leader now, Matt thinks. Near on the other hand brightens considerably.

“I retract my previous statement. We should keep Mello on anesthesia all the time from now on.”

“Yee,” Mello agrees.

“_No_,” Matt protests.

2\. “If I wake up in the middle of the night and find you dead, I’m making a trip to hell just so I can strangle your soul,” Matt grumbles. Mello snorts.

“Death can suck my balls.”

3\. “It’s Commander Rester. Is it safe to come in?” Near’s eyebrows raise. He looks like he’s trying very hard not to laugh but he calls out in a perfectly innocent voice,

“What does Commander Rester mean, is it safe to come in? The door isn’t trapped.”

“Ah. We just thought, Halle and I, that you might want some more… Private time. To reunite with your… friends.” Near is well and truly snickering at this point. Matt can’t quite wrap his head around what’s happening. Mello is humming another song.

“While I appreciate the consideration, we have finished discussing everything we needed to,” and Near somehow manages to say _discussing _in a way that can’t be convincing this Rester guy he’s got the wrong idea. “You may come in.” The blonde dude who let Matt into the penthouse steps into the room with one hand over his eyes. He cautiously removes it.

“Oh,” he says. And then: “Awwww.” And then: “Halle, come see this!” Agent Hall pokes her head into the room to see the two boys snug as a bug under the duvet on either side of Mello, who’s still sprawled gracelessly on his front.

“Damnit,” she mutters, “And we can’t even take pictures.”

4\. “…Did they think we were fucking?” Mello asks loudly.

“We are _definitely_ keeping him on anesthesia,” Near says gleefully.

“Near _no._”

5\. “My nineteenth birthday was last August.”

“…No fucking way.”

“I am _barely _two years younger than you.”

“You’re not nineteen.”

“Yes I am!”

“No you’re not!”

“I am, and since when do you care about what’s legal?!” Mello pouts.

“I care about you.” There is a moment of stunned silence. And then Near starts chanting:

“The anesthesia stays! The anesthesia stays!”

6\. “As you can see, the only name not written here is Light Yagami’s. Mikami also called you God—”

“WE’RE BACK BITCHES!” Near turns around to see that Halle has opened the laptop again.

_“Agent Halle.”_

“They would resent you if you didn’t let them witness this, Near.” He sighs.

“_Behave_,” he says in warning. (Light makes one last desperate attempt to talk his way out, he says that he’s being framed. But Aizawa comes forward and puts a hand on his shoulder and says enough, Near wins.* *More hooting and hollering from M&m. “FUCK HIM UP BABE!” Near shuts the laptop again.)

7\. “Mello knew. He knew that alone we aren’t able to attain our goal, to surpass L. But together… together we can stand with L. Together we can surpass L! And right now we are confronting Kira, who defeated L, with solid evidence. …Try to talk your way out of this if you can.”

Matt: God damn… That was hot.

*Near picks up Rester’s phone and throws it across the room. It shatters against the concrete. *

8\. Near: I’m sorry. I can be… petty and vindictive sometimes and I think part of me wanted you to feel as I did. When you both left.

Mello: THAT’S what this is about?!

Matt: See! I told you! Fucking abandonment issues!

Near and Mello: Shut up Matt!

9\. Matt: So here’s what could happen. One, Near fucks off god knows where to go be L on his own, leaving Mell and I to sort our own shit out. Or two, we avoid the drama of the next six seasons and decide to move in together.

10\. Matt, struck with a bolt of inspiration:

“DO YOU, MELLO, TAKE NEAR TO BE YOURS IN THIS ROMANTIC POLYAMEROUS HELLA HOMO CLUSTERFUCK OF A RELATIONSHIP?” Near nearly dies laughing.

“I FUCKING DO MATT LEAVE ME ALOOONE!”

“DO YOU PROMISE TO LOVE HIM IN SICKNESS AND HEALTH—”

“STOP I HATE YOU I HATE YOU SO GOD DAMN MUCH—”

“Fine. To have and to hold, til death do us part, yadda yadda yadda you may now kiss the groom.”

“…You literally just want to see us kiss.”

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very tired.   
Thank you for reading. ❤️❤️❤️


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